Autonomous Fitness for Service Assessment

• US 20080004882A1
• Filed: 06/27/2007
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Stylwan IP Holding LLC
• Original Assignee: Stylianos Papadimitriou, Wanda Papadimitriou
• Inventors: Papadimitriou, Wanda, Papadimitriou, Stylianos
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,425 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques

Abstract

Autonomous fitness for continuing service assessment equipment interacts with the operator through natural speech, voice and sound and provides active failure prevention through automatic and/or continuous fitness for service assessment of a material under evaluation. The equipment comprises at least one computer and a material features acquisition system operable to detect a plurality of material features. The features are then evaluated according to rules that capture the multidiscipline knowledge of experts and are already inputted into the computer. The computer iterations are processed until an acceptable conclusion is made regarding the condition of the material under evaluation, thus alleviating the need for multidiscipline experts to examine and analyze all the material data manually, a very slow and expensive process. Further, the natural speech and voice interaction preferably allows the operator to operate the equipment while wearing gloves or with dirty hands as he/she will not need to constantly physically manipulate the equipment. The autonomous fitness for service assessment capability may also be retrofitted into conventional inspection systems by extracting pertinent features through spectral frequency analysis and sensor normalization and utilizing those features in the autonomous fitness for service assessment system.

Claims

1. A material evaluation system comprising:

a computer;

a material features acquisition system operable to detect a plurality of material features;

a first database comprising at least one of constraints and material historical data; and

a first program to evaluate the impact of said material features upon a material under evaluation by operating on said material features, said operation being guided by at least one of said constraints and said material historical data from said first database, whereby said first computer program evaluates a fitness for service of said material under evaluation.

2. The evaluation system of claim 1, further comprising at least one of fingerprint, voiceprint, irisscan, face recognition and other biometric identification capability to recognize an operator.

3. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein operator recognition is partially controlled by data inputted into said computer from a video camera in communication with said computer.

4. The evaluation system of claim 1, further comprising a speech synthesizer and at least one of loudspeaker and earphone, wherein said computer requests input of at least one of said constraints and material historical data from an operator through natural speech.

5. The evaluation system of claim 1, further comprising a speech recognition engine and at least one microphone, wherein at least one of said constraints and material historical data is inputted at least in part into said computer by an operator through natural speech.

6. The evaluation system of claim 1, further comprising a sound recognition engine and at least one microphone, wherein at least one of said constraints and material historical data is obtained at least in part from said sound recognition engine.

7. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said material features is partially obtained and inputted into said computer from a video camera in communication with said computer.

8. The evaluation system of claim 1 further comprising:

a sensor with an output, said output comprising of signals indicative of features from the material under evaluation, in a time-varying electrical form;

a sensor interface for said computer, wherein said output is in communication with said computer and wherein said computer converts said signals to a digital format, producing digital signals;

a second database comprising at least one of material features recognition constraints and historical data;

a storage for said computer, wherein said first database, second database and said digital signals can be stored; and

a second program, being executed on said computer, and being guided by said second database for operating on said digital signals;

whereby identifying said material features detected by said sensor.

9. The evaluation system of claim 8, further comprising the induction of an excitation into the material under evaluation and detecting a material under evaluation response to the excitation through said sensor.

10. The evaluation system of claim 9 wherein said excitation is controlled, at least in part, by said computer and wherein an excitation response characteristic is stored in said memory storage.

11. The evaluation system of claim 8, wherein said material features recognition constraints further comprising at least one of coefficients, rules, knowledge and data developed and inputted into said computer prior to the evaluation of said material.

12. The evaluation system of claim 8, wherein said sensor further comprises memory storage, and wherein at least one of said first database, second database, excitation response characteristic and digital signals can be stored and accessed by said computer.

13. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said material features acquisition system can be adapted to operate a data acquisition system.

14. The evaluation system of claim 13, wherein at least one of constraints and material historical data of said first database are obtained at least in part from said data acquisition system.

15. The evaluation system of claim 13, wherein at least one of a material geometry feature and a material evaluation speed is obtained at least in part from said data acquisition system.

16. The evaluation system of claim 8, wherein at least one of said digital signals, first database historical data and second database historical data are stored in said storage in a material length sequence said length obtained at least in part from a data acquisition system.

17. The evaluation system of claim 8, wherein said second program recognizes a first material feature detected by said sensor.

18. The evaluation system of claim 17, wherein said second program recognizes a second material feature detected by said sensor.

19. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first program further implements said first database to evaluate an impact of a second material feature upon a first material feature.

20. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first database further comprise at least one of material selected use coefficients, rules, knowledge and data developed and inputted into said computer.

21. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first database further comprise at least one of knowledge and rules and coefficients from a group comprise at least one of bending, buckling, compression, cyclic loading, deflection, deformation, dynamic linking, dynamic loading, eccentricity, eccentric loading, elastic deformation, energy absorption, feature growth, feature morphology migration, feature propagation, impulse, loading, misalignment, moments, offset, oscillation, plastic deformation, propagation, shear, static loading, strain, stress, tension, thermal loading, torsion, twisting, vibration, and a combination thereof.

22. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first database comprise at least one of as-designed features, as-built features, alterations, as-is features, material composition chemistry, material deployment chemistry, corrosion, fatigue, hardness, loads, metallurgy, and a combination thereof.

23. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first program further implements said first database to evaluate an impact of said first material feature upon said fitness for service.

24. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first program operates upon a first feature to calculate at least one of a difference, a rate of change, a coverage change and a morphology shift of said first feature.

25. The evaluation system of claim 1, wherein said first program operates upon a first material feature to recommend fitness for service remedial path.

26. The evaluation system of claim 25, wherein said material remedial path comprises at least of utilization, redeployment and alteration to a shape of said material feature.

27. The evaluation system of claim 26, wherein said alteration to a shape of said material feature is an optimal shape for a fitness for service.

28. The evaluation system of claim 1, further comprising a timing mechanism, wherein signals produced by said features acquisition system are stored in said first database with reference to a time when said signals were produced.

29. The evaluation system of claim 28, wherein said signals and said time are indicative of a productivity.

30. The evaluation system of claim 1 further comprising a communication link capable of communication with at least one of a storage device affixed on the material under evaluation and a remote location computer system.

31. The evaluation system of claim 30, further comprising a third database and a finite element analysis engine, whereby said remote location computer system further evaluates a fitness for service of said material under evaluation.

32. The evaluation system of claim 31, operated by at least one expert.

33. The evaluation system of claim 32, further comprising a third program to capture a set of knowledge of said at least one expert and store said captured knowledge in said third database.

34. The evaluation system of claim 33, further updating said first database with said captured knowledge of said at least one expert.

35. The evaluation system of claim 30, wherein communication with said storage device affixed on the material under evaluation further comprises reading and writing into said storage device.

36. The evaluation system of claim 35, further reading from said storage device comprising at least one of a material identification, a material geometry and a material historical data.

37. The evaluation system of claim 35, further writing into said storage device comprising at least one of a material identification, a material geometry and a material historical data.

38. The evaluation system of claim 1, further comprising a sound synthesizer and at least one of loudspeaker and earphone, wherein said computer converts said fitness for service into audible sound.

39. A material evaluation system comprising:

a computer;

a material features acquisition system operable to detect a plurality of material features;

a first database comprising at least one of constraints and material historical data; and

a data conversion program, whereby said material features are rendered in a data format for use by a finite element analysis engine.

40. The evaluation system of claim 39 further comprising:

a sensor with an output, said output comprising of signals indicative of features from the material under evaluation, in a time-varying electrical form;

a sensor interface for said computer, wherein said output is in communication with said computer and wherein said computer converts said signals to a digital format, producing digital signals;

a second database comprising at least one of material features recognition constraints and historical data;

a storage for said computer, wherein said first database, second database and said digital signals can be stored; and

a second program, being executed on said computer, and being guided by said second database for operating on said digital signals;

whereby identifying said material features detected by said sensor.

41. The evaluation system of claim 40, further comprising the induction of an excitation into the material under evaluation and detecting a material response to the excitation through said sensor.

42. The evaluation system of claim 41 wherein said excitation is controlled, at least in part, by said computer and wherein an excitation response characteristic is stored in said storage.

43. The evaluation system of claim 39, further comprising a speech synthesizer and at least one of loudspeaker and earphone, wherein said computer requests input of at least one of said constraints and material historical data from an operator through natural speech.

44. The evaluation system of claim 39, further comprising a speech recognition engine and at least one microphone, wherein at least one of said constraints and material historical data is inputted at least in part into said computer by an operator through natural speech.

45. The evaluation system of claim 39, further comprising a sound recognition engine and at least one microphone, wherein at least one of said constraints and material historical data is obtained at least in part from said sound recognition engine.

46. The evaluation system of claim 39, wherein said material features is partially obtained and inputted into said computer from a video camera in communication with said computer.

47. The evaluation system of claim 39, whereby a boundary for said finite element analysis engine is obtained at least in part from at least one of a speech recognition engine, a sound recognition engine and a camera.

48. The evaluation system of claim 39 further comprising a communication link capable of communication with at least one of a storage device affixed on the material under evaluation and a remote location computer system.

49. The evaluation system of claim 48, further comprising a third database and a finite element analysis engine, whereby said remote location computer system further evaluates a fitness for service of said material under evaluation.

50. The evaluation system of claim 49, operated by at least one expert.

51. The evaluation system of claim 50, further comprising a third program to capture a set of knowledge of said at least one expert and store said captured knowledge in said third database.

52. The evaluation system of claim 51, further updating said first database with said captured knowledge of said at least one expert.

53. The evaluation system of claim 48, wherein communication with said storage device affixed on the material under evaluation further comprises reading and writing into said storage device.

54. The evaluation system of claim 53, further reading from said storage device comprising at least one of a material identification, a material geometry and a material historical data.

55. The evaluation system of claim 53, further writing into said storage device comprising at least one of a material identification, a material geometry and a material historical data.

56. A method to evaluate material comprising:

detecting an output of at least one sensor, said output comprising of signals indicative of features from the material under evaluation, in a time-varying electrical form;

converting said signals to a digital format producing digital signals;

recognizing a material feature by utilizing a computer to analyze said digital signals;

evaluating an impact of said material feature upon said material under evaluation, utilizing said computer; and

calculating a fitness for service of said material under evaluation, utilizing said computer.

57. The method of claim 56, further comprising the step of inducing excitation into said material.

58. The method of claim 56, further comprising the step of decomposing in frequency said digital signals by a mathematical transform in the digital domain, wherein said mathematical transform in the digital domain comprises Fourier transform, and/or wavelets, and/or coiflets.

59. A method to evaluate material comprising:

detecting an output of at least one sensor, said output comprising of signals indicative of features from the material under evaluation, in a time-varying electrical form;

decomposing in frequency said signals, wherein said decomposing comprises passing said signals through at least one filter, producing decomposed in frequency signals;

converting said decomposed in frequency signals to a digital format producing digital signals;

recognizing a feature by utilizing a computer to analyze said digital signals;

evaluating an impact of said material feature upon said material under evaluation, utilizing said computer; and

calculating a fitness for service of said material under evaluation, utilizing said computer.

60. The method of claim 59, further comprising the step of inducing excitation into said material.

61. The method of claim 59, further comprising the step of decomposing in frequency said signals, wherein said decomposing comprises passing said signals through a filter bank.

62. A method to calibrate a fitness for service evaluation system comprising:

providing at least one material sample, with at least one feature impacting a material fitness for service and whereby a fitness for service evaluation outcome of said material sample is known;

evaluating said material sample with said fitness for service evaluation system;

adjusting said fitness for service evaluation system, whereby an evaluation outcome of said material sample matches a known fitness for service of said material sample.

63. The method of claim 62, whereby said material sample comprises a plurality of features impacting the material fitness for service and whereby a fitness for service evaluation outcome of said material sample is known.

64. The method of claim 62, whereby said material sample feature comprises two or more coexisting features impacting the material fitness for service and whereby a fitness for service evaluation outcome of said material sample is known.

65. A method to calculate a material remediation comprising:

programming a computer to operate a material features acquisition system to detect a plurality of material features;

recognizing a feature utilizing said computer;

evaluating an impact of a material feature upon said material, said evaluation being performed by said computer;

calculating a fitness for service of said material, said calculation being performed by said computer; and

determining a material remediation path, said determination being performed by said computer.

66. The method of claim 65, wherein said material remediation path comprises at least of utilization, redeployment and alteration to a shape of said material feature.

67. The method of claim 66, wherein said alteration to a shape of said material feature is an optimal shape for a fitness for service.

68. A method to evaluate material comprising:

detecting an output of at least one sensor, said output comprising of signals indicative of features from the material under evaluation, in a time-varying electrical form;

converting said signals to a digital format producing digital signals;

recognizing a material feature by utilizing a computer to analyze said digital signals;

calculating a geometry of said material under evaluation with said material feature, utilizing said computer; and

converting said geometry to a file format in compliance with a finite element analysis engine input/output file specification.

69. The method of claim 68, further comprising the step of inducing excitation into said material.

70. A method to evaluate material comprising:

detecting an output of at least one sensor, said output comprising of signals indicative of features from the material under evaluation, in a time-varying electrical form;

converting said signals to a digital format producing digital signals;

recognizing a material feature by utilizing a computer to analyze said digital signals;

detecting at least one parameter that affects a fitness for service of said material, utilizing said computer; and

storing said parameter and said digital signals in a file, utilizing said computer.

71. The method of claim 70, further comprising the step of inducing excitation into said material.